I study the foreign policy inefficiencies that result from the legislative process. In my dissertation, I found that the process of bargaining and vote-buying, often necessary to create congressional coalitions, can cause the United States to lose its foreign aid edge to a complicated, ineffective bureaucracy. In a book project stemming from my dissertation, I am expanding the analysis to determine the role of the congressional policymaking process in trade, military basing and acquisitions, and immigration.

I have a PhD from the University of California San Diego and a BA from Carleton College, in addition to three years’ experience working in the field of international development and six months’ field research interviewing foreign policy experts in Washington, DC.